This invention relates to an improved headliner material having outer polyester fiber mat layers surrounding an inner foam layer of a plastic other than polyester.
Headliners are utilized to cover the ceiling area in modern vehicles. Typically, headliners are formed of a plurality of layers of different materials.
The headliner layers are selected to achieve several different design objectives. First, the headliner must have an attractive appearance, and must maintain its shape over several years of use. In addition, the headliner must provide sound absorption in the vehicle interior.
Headliners have historical utilized layers of fiberglass in combination with foam layers. Fiberglass has some undesirable characteristics in that it is potentially irritating to the skin of the assemblers. More recently, headliners have been proposed wherein the fiberglass layers have been replaced by polyester layers. These proposals have typically been for headliners formed entirely of layers of polyester.
In particular, in one of the proposed polyester bats, the mats are formed of a mixture of low melt and high melt polyester fiber pieces. The low melt pieces are formed to have a polyester-based adhesive sheathing. Upon application of heat the adhesive melts and bonds the low and high melt fibers together. Such headliners are disclosed for example in co-pending patent applications Ser. No. 08/868,312 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,048,809.
For some headliner applications, the use of pure polyester materials might be somewhat limiting.